The Unloved by John Saul Page A

tiredness in his body was accentuated by something else.
    A cold knot of fear had begun forming deep inside him as he wondered if perhaps Ruby wasn’t right.
    Perhaps, indeed, his mother had determined that he should not be allowed to escape from Sea Oaks again.
    Perhaps she intended to imprison him, just as she had imprisoned Marguerite.
    Perhaps she intended to imprison them all.

CHAPTER 4

    By Thursday morning Anne was beginning to grow used to the strange daily rhythm of Devereaux Island. Breakfast, she had learned, was served at exactly seven in the morning, and, like all meals, was constantly interrupted by the harsh buzzing that signaled Helena Devereaux’s insistent demands for her daughter’s attentions. After breakfast Ruby would go about her cleaning, moving heavily about the house. Anne was certain that each year fewer of the rooms were used. Most of them, indeed, were closed off, their furnishings draped with muslin dust covers, their heavy draperies drawn against the brilliant burning of the sun. Ruby would go slowly through the rooms still in use, dust cloth in her hand, but her ministrations had little effect—the house, though occupied by seven people now, was still imbued with the stultifying atmosphere of a museum. Even Julie and Jeff found themselves unconsciously lowering their voices when they were inside.
    After breakfast Marguerite disappeared into her mother’s room, where she would sit in a chair whose upholstery had grown shiny from constant use, reading quietly to Helena, who lay in her bed, snoring softly.
    Unless Marguerite stopped reading.
    Then the querulous tones of the old woman’s voice would sound through the house as she berated her daughter. “I don’t ask much,” were the words she repeated most often. “I’ve taken care of you all your life—the least you can do is read to me a little now and then!” Once, Anne listened outside Helena’s door, but all she heard after the old woman’s furious outburst was the calm melody of Marguerite’s sweetly modulated voice.
    Before lunch Marguerite would change clothes, always appearing on the veranda as if she were prepared to greet twenty guests, though there was never anyone but the family in attendance. Somehow, even when Anne herself felt her clothes clinging damply to her skin, Marguerite always managed to look cool and fresh, her dark hair coiled up in a French twist held in place by a large tortoise-shell comb. On anyone else the ornament might have looked ridiculous, but the comb only accentuated Marguerite’s graceful figure, and if she felt self-conscious about her pronounced limp, she never showed it. Yet, even on the veranda, there was no escape from the buzzer’s demands. Indeed, Anne had quickly realized that the buzzer was only silent during the long hot afternoons when an even deeper somnolence fell over the house. Then Helena would drift into a fitful nap while Marguerite disappeared into the sewing room, where she would spend an hour or two at the ancient Singer.
    Already, she had produced a sea-green shift for Julie, its waist loosely belted in white, which not only fit Julie perfectly, but set off her skin in a manner that lent her the same exotic beauty as her aunt’s.
    Each of the evenings was a repeat of the first one they had spent at Sea Oaks—a simple meal, ruined by Helena’s continued demands for attention.
    For Anne, unused to the southern heat, the days were turning into endless damp hells of boredom, which she spent searching for shelter from the oppressive heat. Once, on the third day of their visit, she’d driven across the causeway into the village, but quickly returned. The stark poverty of its dusty streets and failing businesses had only depressed her more, and by the time she returned to Sea Oaks she understood well why Marguerite seldom left the island and sent Ruby to do what little shopping was necessary. And so, on Thursday morning, she wasn’t surprised when Julie, her expression